BLACKFIVE: Does Oakland really hate the troops?

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Does Oakland really hate the troops?

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Or do we have SNAFU in effect, with the military, a charter firm and an airport managing to screw up?

I am plenty sensitive to slights against our troops, but the recent blowback against Oakland Airport regarding allowing troops in the terminal just doesn't add up. I don't know if there is some agenda there, but the facts as known are more easily explained as normal military travel.

I spent time as a former action guy on staff coordinating operations for teams traveling all over the Pacific Rim. This included all permissions, visas, Customs docs, host country agencies and leasing aircraft. The number of boxes that need to be checked is staggering, and I was always amazed we ever got anyone anywhere. The particular path any group would take through the many civilian and military airports was always a dance or more properly a slam dance. This was pre-9/11 so obviously things are even tighter now.

In most cases the command that charters an aircraft will arrange with the charter firm for a particular path through the airports. This will depend on which have dedicated military facilities and most major airports have areas 100% controlled by the military. In this case I have heard reported that the troops were allowed in transit areas of Frankfurt and another en route stop, but at Oakland no coordinations had been made for them to disembark at the terminal there. There are big differences between transit areas and disembarking ones. No baggage or Customs or other arrival concerns are dealt with at a transit area but in order to disembark arriving passengers you need to have all those things. Since arrangements had not been made for them to use the terminal facilities, a large bit of coordination I might add, then it was the responsibility of the charter to arrange sufficient support at the alternate parking area.

Either you do the extra work to go through the terminal or you arrange for remote disembarkation. Now it may be the airport that screwed up arrangements to support the alternate parking or it may be the charter company, but I don't see some systemic troops have cooties mentality in play. The other major factor in play that I have not heard about, is what disembarkation procedures did the Command chartering the plane request? I have seen many situations where a Commander didn't want a bunch of barrel-chested freedom fighters running around the terminal drinking shots at all the bars. So, many times they required alternate arrangements to keep us out of the terminal. I could see that as a policy for those returning from a war zone, do we really want them having their first interactions with drunken salepeople at Applebee's drinking jaeger-bombs and cursing al Qaeda?

Somebody screwed the pooch on this and while that is sad, it doesn't automatically elevate to travesty. The simpler and more likely answer is normal incompetence at the charter firm, the airport or maybe the command itself wanting control. I don't think we need the clowns from Capitol Hill to fix the problem, all it would have taken was a roach coach and a couple of porta-potties. Just don't let it happen again.

Wolf?